The Washington times. [volume], March 19, 1922, SUNDAY MORNING, Image 45

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
'Prsuli
Deput
I* the Dish With the Small Amount Is Enough Heroin to Kill an
Adult. The Pile of Heroin in the Other Dish Shows How
Much the Confirmed
D OWN in the furnace room In the base. Ad"it Is Able to
meat of New York's Police Head- Tak. .
-quarters the other day stood the
bmUs Police Commissioner, Richard E.
Bnright, and Special Deputy Police Com
missioner Carleton Simon. With their feet
an the grimy furnace room floor and their
bice red from the glow of the open fire-box,
they stood and watched more than three
Million and, a half dollars' worth of for
bidden drugs thrown In on to the Slowing
-Oqtum In one form or another or chemi
cad derivatives of opium made up most of
that valuable but contraband collection. It
represented &, little less than a year's accn
Inestion of the Narcotic Division of the
New York police force under the command
of'Special Deputy Commissioner Simon.
If the detectives were able to find and
confiscate such a quantity of dope In a
year's time It must, of course, represent
but a small percentage of the actual amount
of forbidden drugs which are brought into
Now York City and consumed in a twelve
month. It was a startling evidence of the
widespread use of drugs. and the impres
sive spectacle sobered the faces of Comn
missioner Enright and his deputy. and do
termined them to pursue the wicked traffic
with even greater vigr.
In addition to the assortment of raw
opium. prepared opium, morphine, heroin
cocaine and other contraband drugs there
was an extraordinary assortment of opium
piesan ho lyot,"hyodricned
les nd oherthins usd b dru ad
dict. Al thse wre trow int theBre
box o the urnac
dicth ae cimash Wit moh t S mal A rn e uohHeontKila
duldit. Whe Pave ofestrod nugheOhrDs Sow Hw
dugs tda thepthe ay f oo Ge te e
Yorkus slep Commsoner Rayhwd man
drug-craned Scriial adpt crie o rat
ness red froene gloaove pen averedby
othe gimureace dtruoon of ald thir
thstoodwthef." hn he
bisen drug that inspireo the craftyg
g0ars Ioneence me anomurerr, cand
ga iaives of h copumae ost ofs
ptatevaworbl A cgnrupaof colcimn. ,fo
inste, ork polife undefr the ncghtaid
meatin en, Naroting oiisiou of
Ifthe detties w erlco e abe o swindlang
cosatch adnuocntiyof pea, in a
he' tme ichmrso cse, reraming
ofeforbiddenidrugsiwhich re, trough the
tNhec YorkCiy heand onume mrin at
lesonfthe wasnd strtig eiecero the
briespad ue of du n the impbeore
Thve speacsl seedmth fes-bu Cinre
teuied theurag'prsuLke cedtraffcar
ith even Noreate mnv enirgonr.no
nddo t the assortent of rrg-ol ack
cocainerv anth cotraban r.u thre
hw antraorinaerth asertenAjt of piu
pie n hplyus"hypodermic need-le, a snifffar of cocainh or
hernand othe thing saed , drgad-y, iessi aousSi
unresonillt ther thonintoer nthire
"Wel it s tharsiae hu
valuer o'he comunity of whtw ae itniyi.Adthe drugeviltty
thgrowinghaottheeprlicetknow.pSrecifictlh
Simn a hetosed heastpacageof Ph otro crs of Part law are oming
drug uo te funac. "ot al dug d-son teogi. tDrug tran ic stimulae crthe,
dict ar crminas, ut ost rimnal bur m inrotsfy the evil th which ey s
growingdistsheWeohacveknow.rSpecifncugh
drug today o pt hat o GreterNew constantly contend.
Drugs make criminals in more than one
Yorkto lee. Noonecansay ow any way. Not only does the use of drugs tend
dru-crzedcriinas ad cime ofcrati- to "destroy the mental resistance to evil
nessandvioencehav ben avrte by that is called morals, but drugs seem to
the eizre ad dstrutio of ll his make their victims insensible to the differ
It s te rugtha ispies hecraty ence between right and wrong. Drugs
schees n te mnds f hghwyme, ~ now cost so much money that the addict
is usually compelled to resort to crime in
giar. cnfienc me an muderrsand order to buy them. Many a criminal has
givs tem he ourge o d thir el- committed his first offense in order to
perae wrk.A grup f ciminls,$0 'buy his "dope.' ' Commissioner Simon
somehiden en, mokng pium Ou ofsays that the average drug fiend pays $5
a day. $35 a week for his supply. He has
the ume wil Cme n ida fr sinding arrested addicts who confessed to paying
planfor oldng u a aymateror bow-as high as $16 a day.
In the sixteen months that Dr. Simon
Thentheschmer slep, reaing has been In offid6 his Narcotic Division has
weid, xotc, lisfuldremsthrughthe made about 4.000 arrests. The record for
this year is well ahead of that for a corres
thic muky hzeand n te monin at ponding period last yeai-whic'h does not
mean that the drug evil is increasing out
brilian ide ofthe i~h befre.of all bounds in New York City, but mere
The deastil sems fasile-bt ~ro-ly that the Narcotic Division is increasing
it ot. orml mn-evn cimialsnotly efficient in keeping pace.
unde th infuene ofdrus-wold ack Under the State law anyone caught with
the erv tocommt te cime.Butthe drugs fillegally in his possession may be
arrested and sent to take "the cure"-a
howthe ca gt te nrve Alabof he scientific treatment administered in a
hypoermc nedle a siffof ccaie ~ State institution, where the patient is
heron-ad tey re smulted malygiven diminishing doses of his drug, fed
unresonngl, t th poit werenoting accordiing to prescribed dietary, and made
stopthemto exercise until eventually he has lost the
Unde li nfu~ne oftbeirus ptty "habit" and is well and strong enough
thivesshot teirvicims puse nath.mentally and physically to be released.
ers rutllyassultyoug grls cofidnce The cure really cures, but, unfortunately,
.men.. not l .=,andh theirprey, but pa. undaerrd victims return to their old
V Ifolice Comn
~eless Attacks
on the Dope
Drug-Cruze
g asHe Destr
Seized Opi
Half the Ci
Christmas Post-Card Showing How a
Ento a Prisomer I
Million and a Half Dollars Worth
I by the New York Police Narcotic I
haunts and associates and often are soon
enmeshed in the toils of the drug again.
It is througI~ the discovery and arrest
of drug users that Dr. Simon's men get to
the drug peddlers-the men they ae really
after. The drug addict tells the police
where he buys his supply. or they shadow
hinm until they find out for themselves.
Then, pretending to he drug fiends them
selves-every detective in the Narcotic
Division can give an excellent Imitation of
a "cokey" or a "hop-head"-they persuade
the peddler to sell them the drug. Then
ho is arrested, or his depot raided. It was
the spoils of these raids that went into
the furnace-except for several thousand
dollars' worth still awaiting use as evi
dence In court.
Where does all this drug come from?
The Federal law forbids its importation
except under bond. The Treasury Depart
ment has a force of men at work to pre
vent it being smuggled in-too small a
force to cover the lengthy biorders and sea
coast of the country. Much of it comes
from Europe. Dr. Simon, who has agents
in England and the Continent, discovered
'recently that the Germans were manufact
uring heroin and cocaine synthetically,
and that they and a Japanese syndicate
were planning to flood the United States
with their products. There is no law in
Gormany or Japan to forbid the exporta
lion of narcotics.
A good deal of dIope has found its way
to New York recently from Canada, which
in turn got it from Mexico. By the
arrest in New York a few weeks ago of a
Montreal criminal and opium user Dr.
Simon verified information coming to him
from other sources, namely, that the drug
ring in Montreal hasa been using chorus
girls playing in Montreal to smuggle drugs
over the 'border.
'rhe Monteal. bnd m.a it a practice
Mneller
usesioner Simc
6f the Police
Supply of
I Criminals
oys8 Enough.
uim to Put
ty to Sleep
"Deck" of Herein Was Sminggled
a the Tomb.,
of Contraband Drugs,
)iyiuion in thme Last Year.
to lure the girls to a certain no
torlous dive which pretended to
be a theatrical club, and by
slipping a drug into their drinks
ehsiaved them. They craved
the drug, after they had been
told what It was that made
their drink so "different," and
they could only get the drug by
4oing the will of the gang. Some
of them were set to work trying
to corrupt customs officers.
others carried supplies of the "Decks"
drug boldly away with them the N
when their shows left town.
Still others became regular travelling
saleswomen, making the triangular trip
between Montreal, Boston and New York.
The drug was conoealed in ingenious ways.
The mysterious deaths of several beau
tiiful girls in New York recently hinge
upon the operations of the Montreal drug
ring, as did the wild flight of an unnamed
woman from Montreal to New York in a
tai not so long ago-an adventure that
remains a mystery Nso far.
The drug evil has developed a new derm
of criminal, which Dr. Simon has Isolated
and iden-tified just as a bacteriologist
might Isolate and describe a new germ.
He is the "drug booster," who seldom uses
the drug but persuades others to use It.
He Is the missIonary, the advance agent
of the drug ring.
Sometimes he distributes free samples,
sometimes he enslaves a number of girls
and spreads the habit through them all
over a factory or store. He and his assist
ants work on a commission basis. He is
the successor to the cadet or 'procurer of
the white-slave trafice, for he ad. he can
use girls more prwitably In peddling drugs
than In other forms of vice. Recently Dr.
Simonn ha fond school childen apsed
r inN0
ft Reveals the
Deputy Police Comnmissiona.
Mooney Destroying Dop.
at Pellee Headquar
esNew York.
of Heroin Concealed in a Copy of
sw York Board of Health Report.
in this practise; one of the women re
terred to above had a large clientele, in
fashIonable hotels and made a specialty
of boosting the drug among college
students.
Ihnee ball habitues number maany drug
boosters; others pose as chorus girls. If
their 0015mmm are of the higher planes
of sealety they seldom fall within the
clutches of the police, because there is
enough money avaiable to buy the drug
without resorting to crime. In the last
flew weeks, however, Commissioner Simon
has tan down some of the peddlers who
supply the upper West Side, the Murray
Hill section and Fifth avenue with drugs,
and wealthy usera of narcotics are finding
It more dificult to' get their daily dope.
One of these peddler. had a route as
defiaite as that of a milkman. Begining
at six every morning he made his enda
of fasbiemable apartment houses, leaving
three decks of cocaine here, a phial of
morphine there, halt a dosen decks of
heroin at the next place. Sometimes, his
books showed, he was called on to supply
additional opium or heroin for a "party,"
Just s a catorer might supply dinners
.w meine. Itan saithat on sveral
w'tork
Sinon and Lieutenant Joseph J.
and Opiums Pipes in the Furnace
occasions he actually supplied experts to
"cook" the opium for a patron who wanted
to treat hin guests to a smoke.
The tenseness of modern life, the after
war reaction-thesesand many other fac
tors are responsible for the Increase in
the drug evil, and it takes steadj. patient
work on (fommissioner Simon's part to
combat it. He himself works with his
men almost every night, sometimes until
daylight, watching suspects, raiding drug
depots or opium dens, questioning prison
ers.
The doctor is a good example of Com
missioner Enright's policy of placing com
petent civilians in the Police Department.
For many years Dr. Simon was well
known as an alienist and criminologist.
He figured as an expert In the Burts.
Guldensuppe, Morrison and Molineaux
murder trials, and when the murderer
Tapley was hanged in Jersey City some
years ago Dr. Simon received the signals
which, by prearrangement, the murderer
sent until he lost consciousness. The re
sults of this experiment did much to
abolish that form of capital punishment in
New Jersey.
It was Dr. Simon who conducted the
principal investigation into the "wter
cure" which the army was accused of
practising in the Philippines, and who
made psycholegical studies of Czolgoss,
President McKinley's assssin. A few
weeks ago the Federal Government sub
poenaed him to act as expert witness at
the trial in Oklahoma City of the man
who gave a hashish cigarette to a police
officer, putting the policeman to sleep and
allowing prisoners to escape. Dr. Simon's
testimony corroborated other evidence and
four men were convicted.
One of the greatest forward steps in the
war on drugs Is the founding by Dr.
Simon of a central clearing house for the
photographs and records of drug users and
peddlers. He is in correspondence with
the police authorities in more than 300
cities here and In Europe, and exchanges
with them the dossiers of anyone found
to be engaged In the drug trafici. A few
days ago Dr. Simon's men arrested a Los
Angeles addict who had been in New York
only eight hours.
And along about five o'clock the other
morning the Montreal "hop head" referred
to above was talking to the quiet. kindly
~voiced man who seemed to have something
to do with the detectives who had made
the arrest, and yet was not like them.
"Well," said the "hop head." "I haven't
been able to do a thing since I landed
here six weeks ago, Haven't made a cent.
And I hear this guy Simon Is a tough egg
-you can't get to him, and his men have
driven most of the gang out of town
that's why there's so many of them in
Canada now, and why junk costs sq much
igore in New York than ether places. It's
hard to get, and this guy Simon is making
it harder all the time."
It was "this guy Simon" to whom the
"hop head" was speaking, but he never
knew AL